How Bill Clinton Created Jobs

WASHINGTON - Bill Clinton's new book doesn't mince words about
the dismal state of the Obama economy. The former president flatly
declares, "We're in a mess now."

Are we ever! But the fact that this withering indictment comes
from a former Democratic president, who is widely credited for the
strong job-creating economy that emerged in his second term, makes it
an embarrassing lecture from a political master who thinks Obama is in
over his head.

This is the news equivalent of "man bites dog," or in this case,
"Democrat bites Democrat."

Clinton not only criticizes Obama's economy but also his
relentless attacks on Wall Street executives (though he is happy to
take their money for his campaign).

"Many of them supported me when I raised their taxes in 1993,
because I didn't attack them for their success," Clinton writes in his
book "Back To Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy."

That cutting criticism, among others in the book, led to "some
eye-rolling among senior Obama advisers," said the Washington Post,
and maybe a few expletives to boot.

Even the title of Clinton's book is a slap at the Obama's
economic incompetence.

If "we need smart government for a strong economy," as Clinton
correctly states, it necessarily follows that we now have incompetent
government and a dangerously weak economy.

"It is heartening that people all over the world want to pursue
their version of the American Dream but troubling that others are
doing a better job than we are of providing it to their people,"
Clinton says.

He also takes Obama to task for not dealing with the debt
ceiling issue in his first two years when he had huge Democratic
majorities in Congress, and for failing to come up with a coherent
campaign message to blunt the GOP's political attacks in the 2010
midterm elections.

Clinton offers his own prescriptions for economic growth,
including passage of President George W. Bush's free trade agreements
that Obama belatedly signed last month after nearly three years of
inaction.

But Clinton had already been offering more far-reaching advice on
the economy that Obama has been ignoring to his own political peril:
This is no time to be raising taxes.

"I personally don't believe we ought to be raising taxes or
cutting spending, either one, until we get this economy off the
ground," Clinton said earlier this fall in an interview with Newsmax.